WOMEN IN REVOLT

In 2010, three Muslim women in Malaysia who were caned for having sex outside of marriage claimed that the punishment was justified and even beneficial. The three women, aged 17-25, said they turned themselves in after feeling guilty for having pre-marital sex with their respective boyfriends. This sort of resignation to anti-feminist ideals is also reflected in the beliefs held by some Muslim women who not only accept but also defend the actions of men who abuse them (or other women) physically, psychologically, or through other means such as by forcing a girl into an arranged marriage. While many of these women are victims of the regimes they live under, this does not mean that they will not collude as misogynists themselves. Mothers who arrange for their daughters to undergo female genital mutilation or worse, the mother who stands by as her daughter becomes the victim of an honour killing may well have suffered in their own lives (and indeed they may participate in such misogynistic rituals because of their own normalised experience of suffering), but this does not excuse such abuse. Cultural relativism is not a defence for human rights abuses. So what is an appropriate feminist response to all this? How are feminists meant to react when, as happens in Western countries too, women act as their own worst enemy? It's a difficult dilemma. Painting Muslim women as victims only infantilises and alienates them. Conversely, ceding agency to Muslim women by claiming that they freely "choose" their religion only obfuscates the complex systems of power and gendered exploitation that continue to exist within many Muslim communities.

SMH.com